


The Color of Absence

by thesweetpianowritingdownmylife



Series: Caduceus and Mollymauk [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Aromantic Caduceus Clay, Don't read if you are part of the CR cast or crew, Gen, Polynein (Critical Role)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-12-14 17:31:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21019571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesweetpianowritingdownmylife/pseuds/thesweetpianowritingdownmylife
Summary: None of the Mighty Nein could see purple anymore. Caduceus never had and never would. He didn’t have the right to mourn it.(Soulmate AU, where you are born seeing some colors, and you see the rest when you meet your soulmate)





	The Color of Absence

There were patches of gray in the world of Caduceus Clay.

He was lucky. Luckier than most. Not only he had multiple soulmates, but he had met most of them. Now he was travelling the world with them, and wasn’t that wonderful? Caduceus sure thought it was.

The world had been gray when he was a child, with one exception; his hair, the same color as his mother’s, and the lichen that grew from his magic.

It had been a surprise, when a group of haggard adventurers had stumbled into his grove, with grief fresh in their hearts but no corpse to bury. He had looked at the goblin, and her eyes had changed from clear to the brightest thing he had ever seen in his life. The man’s hair had warmed, had seemed to make all the trees around bloom in their autumn colors. The woman was dressed in shades of one color, a bit colder but just as lovely, and he could see it expanding in the sky above her.

Later, as they rescued the rest of their ragtag group, he had discovered his favorite color. It was on the skin of a lean half-orc (and on Caduceus’s own armor, and his beetle friends, and the moss around the dungeon). He had also discovered the color of blood, bright against the wrists of the tiefling; later, she would tell him that she had always seen red, the color of her mother’s skin. No wonder she was besotted with her, the brightest spot in a sea of gray.

Of course, he hadn’t seen Yasha’s eyes until they reached the grave. One of them was gray. As she cried and raged, he saw the color of the coat change from a dark grey to something much more beautiful.

See, it was different, natural gray and the absence of a color that should have been there. It was almost a distortion, an unpleasantness that grated him in a way his truly gray skin never did.

Some flowers remained that way. Yasha’s eye. Pieces of colorful fabrics, here and there.

Caduceus didn’t want to be ungrateful. He thanked Melora every day, for the food he ate, the air he breathed, the companions he had. He led a life of adventure, he was free, and not a single one of his days was dull. It was greedy to resent that one little gasp, the lacking, the absence, when everything else was so full.

None of the Mighty Nein could see purple anymore. Caduceus never had and never would. He didn’t have the right to mourn it.

Nevertheless, Jester found him crying over gray flowers, and she understood. She told him how you could make purple by mixing blue and red paint. That it was so like his pink, only darker. She showed him her sketchbook, her portraits of Molly, half-naked in a tapestry, kissing Caleb’s forehead, willingly giving gold to bandits, fighting to save their friends, Molly, Molly, Molly, Molly.

Caduceus thought purple must have been a wonderful color.

**Author's Note:**

> Colors:  
Caduceus - Pink  
Nott - Yellow  
Caleb - Orange  
Beau - Blue  
Fjord - Green  
Jester - Red  
Molly - Purple & Violet  
Yasha - Everything else (maroon, gold, etc)


End file.
